[impdev] Easter eggs (was: ImpDev meeting moved to the mailing list.)

[Borun (a.k.a. Boroondas Gupte)]

On 04/15/2012 12:08 AM, David Seikel wrote:
> Do we REALLY need 2MB of Easter eggs?
> -------------------------------------
Do we need them at all? If you feel we don't, be bold and remove them.
Or replace them with new, better Easter eggs. :-P

> There is 2 MB worth of Easter egg images.  Being PNG files, they don't
> compress really well, as the point of PNG is to apply image specific
> compression, which in theory is more efficient than the general purpose
> compressions usually applied to the download packages.  Once compressed
> by PNG, the general purpose compressors can't do any better.  I've not
> looked at current download sizes, but from memory they are between 30
> and 40 MB.  So 2 MB is a considerable percentage, just for Easter eggs.
>
> Sure I have heard stories that Microsoft had an entire flight simulator
> as an Easter egg in some version of Office or something like that.  I
> don't think they are good role models for efficient use of resources.
Having seen that flight simulator back then, I suspect it might actually
have been pretty compact, data size wise. It didn't have actual
textures, but simple colour gradients instead.

> Can we get rid of them?  Or at least use much smaller images?  ASCII
> art?  Have the viewer download the images from the web if ever anyone
> stumbles across them?  Not like it's a crucial feature, or that any
> single person will try it more than once.  lol
>
> Those 2MBs add up fast, so I'd go with the "download from the web when
> needed" idea.  After all, they will rarely be needed, and can be cached
> for those that try it a second time.  Reducing our 'net traffic.
If we are to keep the Easter eggs, web download really seems like the
way to go indeed. Unless someone puts the trigger for one of these eggs
into a popular SL gesture, I wouldn't worry about traffic caused by
that, be it with or without caching.

I wasn't previously aware we had these Easter eggs. When looking at the
implementation yesterday, I noticed a lot of code duplication. So if you
want to keep them, that could deserve some refactoring. And, being
easter eggs in an open source project, maybe tad more obfuscation? I can
throw up a change for either, if wanted. (Sounds like something quick to
do and fun. :-D)

Cheers,
Borun